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Patricia Sharpe

Patricia Sharpe's Profile Photo

Executive editor Patricia Sharpe grew up in Austin and holds a master’s degree in English from the University of Texas at Austin. After working as a teacher (in English and Spanish) and at the Texas Historical Commission (writing historical markers), she joined the staff of Texas Monthly in 1974. Initially, she edited the magazine’s cultural and restaurant listings and wrote a consumer feature called Touts. She eventually focused exclusively on food. Her humorous story “War Fare,” an account of living for 48 hours on military MREs (Meals Ready to Eat), was included in the anthology Best Food Writing 2002. Many of her stories appear in the 2008 UT Press collection Texas Monthly on Food. Her story about being a restaurant critic, titled “Confessions of a ‘Skinny Bitch,’ ” won a James Beard Foundation award for magazine food writing in 2006.

Sharpe has contributed to Gourmet, Bon Appétit, Saveur, and the New York Times. She writes a regular restaurant column, Pat’s Pick, for Texas Monthly.

1224 Articles

Travel & Outdoors|
June 30, 1997

Grand Hotel

Why do reviewers from Condé Nast Traveler to the Zagat and Mobil guides swoon over Dallas’ Mansion on Turtle Creek? I wanted to find out, so I checked in.

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Business|
February 1, 1997

New Deli

It started as a hippie sandwich shop in Austin. Now, more than two decades later, Schlotzsky’s is finally kicking the competition in the buns.

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Food & Drink|
July 31, 1996

Grady Spears

“I feel like I’ve been put through a blender!” says Grady Spears, the executive chef and co-owner of Reata restaurant, whose maniacally successful second location opened in May atop Fort Worth’s Bank One Tower. “On Saturdays we’re serving nearly six hundred customers. It’s just nuts.” Spears may be grousing, but

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Food & Drink|
June 30, 1996

Bread Winners

Upper-crust bakers in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, and Austin are turning out heavenly handmade loaves that make store-bought seem stale by comparison.

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Business|
April 30, 1996

Holy Cacao!

Introducing El Rey, the Venezuelan chocolate that is wowing chefs everywhere, thanks to the efforts of a Texan with a taste for treats.

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Business|
April 30, 1996

7th Heaven

What do Monty Python, the Lion King, Ace Ventura, and Howie Mandel have in common? They’re all part of 7th Level’s strategy to marry show biz with the computer-game biz.

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Food & Drink|
January 1, 1996

Virtual Vittles

From chili to chiles, there’s a heaping helping of Texas food on the Internet, including cookoff schedules, mail-order info, recipes, and restaurant reviews. Dig in.

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Recipes|
December 1, 1995

State Fare: Cinnamon Croissant Bread Pudding

In theory and in practice, bread pudding is what you do with leftover bread—it’s poor folks’ food. But not this bread pudding. The dauntingly rich and absolutely delicious dessert is the specialty of pastry chef Melissa Bailey, who with her husband, executive chef Benjamin Bailey, heads up the kitchen at Houston’s arty

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Art|
June 30, 1995

Spanish Class

In the market for high-quality handmade Hispanic crafts? You’ll find them—and more—at Santa Fe’s famous fair.

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Recipes|
April 30, 1995

State Fare: Vegetable Stack

Vegetables of every shape, color, and texture are mixed and matched in chef Monica Pope’s innovative and healthy dish. A light but filling option from the menu at Boulevard Bistrot in Houston (4319 Montrose), the multilayered assemblage consists of a pancake of grated and sliced vegetables on the bottom and

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Recipes|
June 30, 1994

State Fare: Grilled Vegetable Sandwich

This creation mixes and matches ingredients from the countries of the Mediterranean: grilled portobello mushrooms from Italy, olive oil from France or Spain, hummus-tahini spread from the Middle East.“This sandwich was my wife’s idea,” says David Holben, the executive chef at Dallas’ Mediterraneo. “She’s a vegetarian and she asked me

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Recipes|
March 1, 1994

State Fare: Roast Duck and Creamy Polenta

The ingredients are earthy but the effect is divine in chef Mark Morrow’s rustic anitra arrosto, or roast duck. Morrow’s recipes from Mi Piaci in Dallas (14854 Montfort) do a turn on traditional Italian fare: fresh fowl brushed with honey and balsamic vinegar and slow-cooked creamy polenta, made from simple cornmeal.The

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Dining Out|
December 1, 1993

Five Easy Places

Want to eat a great meal in Dallas without dressing up or dropping a bundle? Cross the river into Oak Cliff.

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Recipes|
August 31, 1993

State Fare: Pasta Primavera

Think casual entertaining, and you think “grill.” This dish, from the New Southwestern bistro Third Coast Rotisserie and Grill in Houston, propels tradition up a notch.The shrimp and scallop skewers, a creation of executive chef Gary Tottis, take one of Texas’ great natural resources—seafood—and give it a distinctive Mexican accent—the

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Recipes|
May 31, 1993

State Fare: Little Boats de la Noche

For millennia, Mexican people have used corn husks as cooking vessels. Alan Mallett, the executive chef at Houston’s Cafe Noche, has adapted the technique for the restaurant’s signature Little Boats because, he says, the ingredients “steam in their own juices and retain all their flavor and texture.” Three variations on

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Recipes|
May 1, 1993

State Fare: Black-Bottom Pecan Pie

Dallas chef Stephan Pyles redefined Texas cuisine in the eighties, giving a sophisticated treatment to down-home staples and adding the distinctive kick of chiles and Mexican spices. The founder of the dear departed Routh Street Cafe and its more casual offspring, Baby Routh (2708 Routh Street), Pyles shares his pioneering

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Environment|
December 1, 1992

Sludge Happens

New York sludge is being spread across West Texas. Opponents insist it’s evil filth; others say the smell means jobs.

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Recipes|
September 30, 1992

State Fare: Quesadillas and Hashbrowns

In Texas, October is the kindest month, bringing idle breezes and the promise of nippy mornings followed by glorious blue afternoons. In weather like this, you want to have friends over for Sunday brunch, but you don’t want to kill yourself cooking. That’s when you need recipes that get you

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Recipes|
May 31, 1992

State Fare: Acorn Squash Soup with Roquefort Toast

Some restaurants are so intertwined with the identity of a city that the place is unthinkable without them. London minus the Sherlock Holmes pub? Inconceivable. Paris sans La Tour d’Argent? C’est impossible. Houston without the Rivoli? No way. For seventeen years, the Rivoli (at 5636 Richmond), with its latticed garden

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